2016 The Absconder TROPHY - Best Small Batch Wine, McLaren Vale Wine Show - OCT 2017 GOLD - 2016 or younger, McLaren Vale Wine Show - OCT 2017 GOLD - James Halliday Challenge - NOV 2017 James Halliday 2019 Wine Companion - AUG 2018 96 POINTS / GOLD Open-fermented, basket-pressed, matured for 10 months in French oak. Bright crimson hue; this is one of a number of outstanding grenaches from 16 with the structure and texture of shiraz or cabernet sauvignon. The bouquet and palate have struck a deal to mirror each other identically, this luxury-packaged wine with the certainty of a long, happy life. Gourmet Traveller Wine, Huon Hooke - Apr 2018 This has a succulent, fruit-sweet palate typical of the variety, while the colour is unusually dark and the palate more structured than most grenaches. Aromas of mint, leather and fresh earth with berried and mint-chocolate on the palate. Bright acidity cleanses the finish. The Real Review, Huon Hooke - NOV 2017 Deep red/purple colour, youthful, with a definite minty edge to the bouquet, and hints of leather and fresh earth. The palate rich and fruit-sweet, with a certain succulence that often sets grenache apart. Berry, mint and chocolate flavours, full and intense with a brightness from acidity and firm tannins. The wine has structure such as is rarely found in pure grenache wines. JamesSuckling.com, Nick Stock - JUL 2017 Aromas of dark fruit and light jam with tea undertones. Medium to full body, soft and silky tannins and a savory finish. Tailored and structured. Fun to drink now. Will improve with age. Winefront.com.au, Gary Walsh - OCT 2017 My eldest son, Charles (9), loves to comment on wine labels and design. Gee, he really was taken with this one. SO stylish Dad. Looks expensive. Perfumed and spicy, with rich cherry liqueur and raspberry, dried mint, and a tea-like earthiness. Medium bodied, smooth uptake of cherry and red berries, a silkiness and gloss, with the gently abrasive swipe of pumice stone tannin. Spicy and exotic, with a satisfying finish of fine length. It unfurls, grows and glows in the glass. It s more evidence that Australian is in a very good place at the moment.
2015 The Absconder JamesSuckling.com, Nick Stock - JAN 2017 96 POINTS / TOP 100 AUSTRALIAN WINES OF 2016 - #68 This wine continues to assert itself as a benchmark for grenache in the region, fusing power with poise in a very convincing result. The nose is composed of all freshly crushed raspberries, red cherries and plums. It s also gently earthy and spicy. There s just a hint of deep-set complexity written into this that will emerge in time. The palate s succulent, flavorsome and juicy with tannins that spread long and fine, holding the finish with impressive focus and drawing flavors of juicy raspberries, cherries and lightly toasted spices deep through the finish. Terrific wine. Drink now and for 10+ years. HuonHooke.com, Huon Hooke - OCT 2016 Bright, clear, youthful, medium to full red/purple colour: limpidity is excellent. The bouquet is pepperminty but more than that, smelling like a bouquet of fragrant balsamic herbs. Sweet, super-ripe raspberry fruit aromas too. The wine is very focused and intense on the mid-palate, with great tension and drive. The brilliance and purity of the fruit are a revelation. Alcohol is high but balanced and it finishes very long. Australian & NZ Wines of the Year 2017, Tyson Stelzer - JUN 2017 TOP 20 WINES OF THE YEAR UNDER $70 - From a 1920s block, particularly old for McLaren Vale, this is a delightfully enticing grenache that captures rose petal fragrance and understated strawberry/raspberry fruits, while presenting an elegant and savoury mouth feel, accented with firm, fine tannins. Quintessential McLaren Vale grenache of the highest order. Gourmet Traveller Wine, 100 Top New Releases - FEB/MAR 2017 Gorgeous; has an aroma or sweet raspberry and mixed fragrant herbs, including mint. Very focused on the mid-palate - the brilliance and purity of the fruit is stunning. Tension and drive. Deceptively light and easygoing now; will certainly last. Wine Business Magazine, Tyson Stelzer - JAN 2017 From a 1920s block, particularly old for McLaren Vale, this is a delightfully enticing grenache that captured rose-petal fragrance and understated strawberry / raspberry fruits, while upholding an elegant and savoury mouth feel, accented with firm, fine tannins. Quintessential McLaren Vale grenache of the highest order. Wine & Spirits Magazine, USA - FEB 2017 92 POINTS Robert Strangways Wigley founded this winery in 1894, producing fortifieds made from grenache. Wirra Wirra still farms grenache from that era; most of this dry red grows on 98-year-old vines in Blewitt Springs, the balance from a block that s 60 years old. The soils range from deep sand over iron stone to red loam clays and sandstone, the wine made traditionally, in open-top fermenters with some whole clusters, basket-pressed and aged in used oak barrels. It s fresh, floral grenache with crunchy red fruit, spicy pomegranate notes and a light, frisky warmth in the end. Pour it with anything meaty off the grill.
2015 The Absconder InDaily, Philip White - FEB 2017...The Absconder named after Wirra founder Greg Trott s infuriating tendency to disappear from sight at all the wrong times has quickly risen to the rare atmosphere at the very top of the new wave. It s gorgeous: offering a moody deep in a polished silky sheen. It s long and alluring and luxurious and makes a much more accessible drink than most of the local Shiraz... The Advertiser, Tony Love - DEC 2016 McLaren Vale and grenache are a hot couple at the moment, this high-end version delightfully fragrant and ethereal, its raspberry strap fruit excitement taking on fascinating sweet spice seasoning, a pomegranate-like tang, and a faint orange bitters note it s a sensory overload and most engaging.
2014 The Absconder James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2017 - AUG 2016 96 POINTS Light, but fresh, red hue; this is a very serious grenache, with a rarely encountered drive and length based entirely on its varietal fruit, the oak and tannins whispering in the background. Will flourish with age, but that s no reason for a hands-off policy today. Jamessuckling.com, Nick Stock - JAN 2016 A very expressive and gently peppery grenache that has immense fragrance and freshness, raspberry candy and it shows a cooler vintage, composed and really fresh. The palate is super fresh and juicy as well as nicely wrapped in fine, even and smooth tannin. The finish is taut and even and it has a very composed, lithe and juicy style, nicely resolved, acidity is assertive, tangy and the wine has punch and drive. It s an energetic wine, best with 6+ years. Matthew Jukes Top 100, Matthew Jukes - JUL 2016 I was distracted throughout my Wirra Wirra tasting by a label that I didn t recognise and I found it so hard to concentrate that I went back and did all the wines a second time! I was right to be hypnotised by this wine though because it is another heroic, but this time, instead of being a hulking, slow-moving brute requiring years to mellow, this is a gentle giant already well into its stride. The nose signals a fanfare of fruit which never stops coming, avalanching down the palate and flinging all manner of red and black berries in all directions. Texturally this is a charmer, too, with succulence and chewiness and yet there are no obvious tannins sticking out of its fundament so this further encourages you to crack on! The majority of fruit comes from a venerable, 98 year old block in Blewitt Springs. It sees French oak, not American and this keeps the exuberance of this old fella in check. McLaren Vale has a handful of champions who are starting to make international waves with their wines, but there is still a long way to go. I, for one, am trying to keep the per capita consumption in the UK as high as I possibly can! Adelaide Review, David Brookes- DEC 2015 You may have noticed I ve got a bit of a thing for, and why not? Spicy, perfumed, medium-bodied and able to stand up to all manner of food/wine matching combos, it s a very good friend to have around. And we are lucky in this fine state; we have some amazing old vines to source our fruit from, truth be known, resources that the Europeans would love to have in their own wine regions. The vines here were planted in the 1920s and style-wise, the wine itself has more in common with Burgundy than the big boofy, extracted that we have often seen in the past. We are certainly beginning to treat the variety with a gentler hand, retaining that beautiful spice and fragrance, and the variety has never been in better shape in Australia. Pale cherry red in the glass with almost Pinot-esque aromas flowing from the glass. Savoury plum and cherry fruits show their faces, dotted with Asian spice notes along with hints of gingerbread, red licorice, subtle oak and light leather notes. Medium-bodied on the palate, the wine shows plenty of space and a sense of airiness to its form, savoury too as it slinks across the tongue. There s a seam of sprightly acidity and the gentle tug of chalky tannins providing gentle support. It s a lovely wine and we really should be drinking more. Forget going to the gym, make that your New Year s resolution.
2014 The Absconder Adelaide Review Hot 100 Wines - DEC 2015 A savoury edge balances the slippery, juicy and lifted rose-petal florals. The one wine most evidently adhering to the spirit of the fruit forward with finesse class.
2013 The Absconder James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2016 - JUL 2015 96 POINTS Hand-picked from 95yo vines at McLaren Flat; crushed (80%) to small open fermenters, 20% whole bunches, 12-day ferment, hand-plunged, matured in used French puncheons for 9 months. McLaren Vale grenache at its elegant best, with ultra-fragrant red berry aromas, the palate a juicy/spicy extension of the bouquet. Australian Financial Review, Tim White - MAR 2016 96(97) POINTS Bread pudding and sourdough crustiness, complex Aussie sous bois, and dark glistening fruit. Massive dark rich stuff in the mouth, and with melting tannins and a sapid, complex, sweet roast meats finish. Fabulous structure. Has some style this and some is definitely going in the cellar. Australian Wine Review, Andrew Graham - DEC 2015 Dark ruby. Another smart release from Wirra, this is headier and a little more bitumen like this year, but still captures the beauty. Cranberry, red berry and a tarry edge, this has a nice viscosity and dark fruit. Lovely lithe sandy tannins. Raspberry fruit and really taps into the open ripe fruit of, but with length and extraction too. Big fan. Best drinking: 2015-2028.
2012 The Absconder James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2015 - JUL 2014 Good hue; a classy example of its genre, with its perfumed, floral bouquet and vibrant red berry fruits on the supple, medium-bodied palate, 10 months in French oak barely impacting on the wine. JamesSuckling.com, Nick Stock s Top 50 Wines of 2014 - SEP 2015 96 POINTS Well, if the 2010 was a good wine, this is a step into greatness. The nose has haunting purity with bright raspberry-tinged red fruit aromas and gentle musky lift, plus hints of earth and light wild herbs. Very even and juicy with essence like raspberry and cassis fruits on the palate. The supple, smooth tannins are balanced with bright acidity that supports perfectly. There s just the right amount of flesh here with good depth and drive sturdy tannins are lurking below, they build as you go, with underlying nutty ripeness through a refined, pure and gently earthy finish. Terrific. Sappy cherry and raspberry to close. Smooth and concentrated. Drink now. The Age Uncorked, Ralph Kyte-Powell - FEB 2014 96 POINTS Is that $70 for a McLaren Vale? It may seem excessive at first but this is no ordinary wine. It s a superb example of just how great South Australian can be. Made from very old vines, it has a profound yet elegant nose combining aromas of plums, crushed berries, flowers, sweet spices and Southern Vales earth in perfect harmony. The palate is a seamless, silky progression of deliciously complex flavours, finishing in a lingering, fragrant aftertaste, supported by superfine ripe tannins. An Australian classic. Winefront, Gary Walsh - OCT 2013 I don t have a feel for how hard a task it is to sell $70 South Australian in this country, but the boxes are all ticked here. Old vines (1920), beautiful packaging, limited production, high quality. Cherry and raspberry, baking spices, subtle rose and tobacco perfume and there may even be a tiny amount of peppermint wafting around in there too. Medium bodied with gentle squishy red fruits mixing with more savoury earth/ tobacco flavours, all very good, yes, but what I like most is its insistent fine grained tannin that controls and shapes the wine from front to long back palate. Good now. Good later. Beautiful wine. McLaren Vale Pinto Noir. Wine Business Magazine (WBM), Mike Bennie - JAN 15 An epic that shows the full layered complexity possible from the variety from a near 100 year old vineyard. Dense, with fine, tense tannins, potency of fruit character, great length of flavour. Excellent.
2012 The Absconder Oz Wine Review, Andrew Graham - NOV 2013 Expectations are always high for a $70, and this is seriously good. Why don t we plant more good. Sexy packaging on this new crop of Wirra super-premiums too the bottles look like a phallic shiny glass bullet. Produced off 95 year old vines, what makes this special is just how utterly -y it is. Purple-red in colour, the nose smells of plum Roll-Ups, red licorice, black pepper and dark earth, at once bright and clean yet also with a wallop of meatiness. The palate follows with a contained, yet utterly ripe and intensely juicy palate. No oak to be seen (barrels are 6 years plus), the acid is just a little snappy on the back end (TA 6.1), but the finish is long, with that concentrated brambly licorice character that you only ever see in really old vine (and I love). Mid-weight, yet not lacking intensity, this is utterly triumphant in the near perfectly balanced McLaren Vale Burgundy mode. Watch critics swoon over this. Would I buy it? Id buy this over plenty of southern Rhone reds twice the price. In other words a big yes. Drinkster, Phillip White - APR 2014 Posh stuff, this. Top French oak barrels must come as surprise to the 190 s McLaren Flat that goes into it that fruit used to go into Bob Strangways Wigley s port, away back in the formative days of Wirra. Bob was a crazy bugger who hated wind. He d stay in bed when the sea breezes blew, and complain about all the barbs on his fence wires blowing up against the posts. Bob was the first absconder; his reasons for hiding were different to Trott s. This wine doesn t hide, I tell you. Its sweet and heady and sophisticated, and somehow bridges the decades between the old days of huge oak tanks and the posh little Frenchies that give this love its swarm. That touch of French forest teases the out to a long dry taper which draws the blood so close to surface of the thin skin behind your lips that you can taste it. It draws the life juice from your very body. So while the Original Blend gives, this one takes, and leaves one a little dissatisfied, twitching for tucker. Like juicy mandarin duck. Which is not to say itll always do that: with a few years, it ll swoon you off to sleep, duck or no duck. But id rather drink it like this, and twitch, and marvel. Opulent at one end; teasing at the other. Pecorino grana pardana pepato is the go. So it ll be a big lump of that in the hunting bag, a bottle of each of these wines, and off down to meet Petrooch and Trotty at Strout Road. Then everything ll be alright. Ooooo yea.
2010 The Absconder James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2013 - JUL 2012 Super-deluxe packaging for an icon wine made from one of the oldest blocks of in McLaren Vale, planted in the 1920 s. This wine was open-fermented, hand-plunged and pressed in the ancient basket press at Wirra Wirra. The colour is bright, the flavours of the juicy red berries with excellent acidity and tannins, and the benison of 10 months in French oak. Good Wine Guide 2012, Nick Stock - 2012 This new top-flight is vinified as a single parcel from 1920 s vines and shows impressive depth and character. Aromas of musky fragrant strawberries and raspberry fruits, some plum and red liquorice, and fennel seeds too. The palate s deep-set tannins are fine and approachable, swirling through in a flurry of bright red-fruit flavours and finishing with gentle grip, Terrific, pure expression. Gourmet Traveller Wine, Huon Hooke - JUL 2012 This makes a big statement. Deep hue; invitingly sweet, super-ripe aromas which translate to the smooth and supple palate with balance, length and drinkability. Light, persuasive tannins complete the picture. The Wine Advocate, Lisa Perotti-Brown - FEB 2012 93 POINTS Medium garnet-purple colored, it gives a good intensity of warm raspberry, kirsch and red plums aromas with hints of black pepper, Provence herbs and orange peel. The palate is full bodied and opulent with a solid foundation of high level fine-grained tannins and very crisp acidity, finishing long and peppery/savory. Winefront, Campbell Mattinson - SEP 2012 Posh grenache from Wirra Wirra. Only 300 dozen made. Matured in old puncheons. Grown on 1920s-planted vines. Really like this. Pure and exotic at once. Tobacco, sweet cherries, fistfuls of dry spice and earth. Sweet core of fruit but an insistent line of savouriness. Keen ribs of tannin rippling through the flesh. On the edge ripeness-wise but is steadfastly medium-bodied. Deserves a big glass and a bit of contemplation and some extra bottle age too.